Highland Christian Church

ParablesHey Judge

God With Us

Easter SundayMiraclesThe Welcome InHe is Risen!

MiraclesThe Get OutMatthew 14:22-33 - Jesus has just fed the 5000 and Matthew says, “Immediately” Jesus gets his disciples out of there. John’s Gospel tells us why so quickly: “the people wanted to grab him and make him king.” Jesus puts the disciples on a boat to consider all that they had just seen and heard. Jesus, knowing the crowd didn’t get who He was and that his disciples were still slow to understand His identity – He goes to spend time with His Father.So the disciples are in trouble… wind and waves… Jesus just stomps all over the thing causing the disciples to tremble (literally walking on the water and waves). Jesus had just shattered their view of him with the feeding of the 5000 and he was doing the same by coming to them on the water. The disciples are terrified (right response), so Jesus tells them that they don’t have to be afraid (the natural response) because He is there (I AM here). Matthew is totally making that connection. The “I AM” is here so do not be afraid.People give Peter a hard ti

MiraclesThe Get LooseLuke 13:10-17 - Jesus sees a woman crippled by an evil spirit (Jesus actually tells us WHY this woman has been bent doubled over for 18 years – held in bondage by Satan). This DOES NOT MEAN all illness or disability is from Satan. In this specific instance, we know the reason – because Jesus lets us know. She is unable to even lift her head – lived a lifetime staring at the ground. Jesus calls out to her, touches her, and the text says, “She is loosed!” “Loosed” was a medical term used by doctors to describe when someone was released from disease, tendons relaxing, or a taking off of bandages (Makes sense b/c Luke was a doctor). In that moment she could stand upright. She praises God! This is where the story should have ended: with the right response.But, Jesus intends to address the hearts of the religious leaders as much as he desires to address the hearts of the crowds and this woman. The synagogue leader in a roundabout way – addresses Jesus – by telling the people NOT to come to syna

MiraclesThe Get UpLuke 7:12-16 - This was an exceptionally sad encounter. A widow (having lost her husband), is leading a funeral procession for her now, dead son. As a woman and a widow, this was incredibly challenging as she had no form of safety or provision. The men in her life had died. This was a huge loss that probably stirred more than one question in the widow’s mind: “How will I survive? Will I survive? How will I continue on? Why does death seem to follow me around?”Thankfully, it was said of Jesus, that he “broke up every funeral he ever met.” Jesus’ is filled with compassion for the widow, the disenfranchised, the forgotten. He tells her NOT to cry – when all her expectations should have pointed to LOADS OF TEARS! The Scripture makes sure we know that Jesus touches the coffin – unafraid of being defiled and “catching death” – Jesus speaks life. The young man sits up and starts talking. We then read that “Jesus gave him BACK to his mother.” This is a powerful picture of Jesus’ power over life and

MiraclesThe Get DownLuke 5:17-26 - Miracles were a HUGE part of Jesus’ ministry… but why? Jesus spoke about the Kingdom of God breaking through and arriving and taking up space – Jesus’ miracles displayed and proved that He was binding up the enemy and that His Kingdom truly was invading! (Each week will have a similar intro to help our people understand that miracles were never the point – but they revealed something MORE!)In Luke 5:17-26 Jesus’ teaching and miracle stick together. They work together. One proves the other. Jesus had been teaching about His Kingdom before the roof opened up. Crowds AND religious leaders were listening in. The man on the mat does not FIRST hear, “Get up and walk,” he hears, “Young man, your sins are forgiven.” (WE HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE PHARISEES RESPONSE IN THIS STORY AS JESUS IS ADDRESSING THEIR SINFUL HEARTS THE WHOLE TIME – He just happens to use this paralyzed man’s life as the illustration). In this case, Jesus said, “Which is easier, to say your sins are forgiven

Under ConstructionGod Who RevealsExodus 34 - Unlike our made up gods, that we tell what to do and what they should be like, God has told us who He is. He has not left us living in darkness and left to guess what He is like. This is why the Scripture is such a treasure. When we understand God is who He says He is, we can see all our false narratives dealt with. We NEED a God who reveals who He is.Taking it to Jesus - Jesus reveals God to us. He reveals the same God from the OT. They are not two different subjects. Jesus reveals Exodus 34:6-7 through His life and through His death and resurrection. Our response to Jesus is the same response Moses had to God revealing who He is... WORSHIP (Exodus 34:8-9). If this is true about God, then we want the same things Moses wanted - God to be with us, God to forgive us, and for God to see us as His own!

Under ConstructionGod THE StandardExodus 20 - God, after His rescue of His people, gives to them a standard that they are to live by. They are to reflect The One who IS the standard. The law was given to reflect the law giver. When we reject these ways, we not only reject God, we actually deny the way we were made to live. In our “breaking” of the law, we tell the Law-giver that we know better and have another way to live. Everything breaks down as we turn our backs on these words. Relationship with God and with others.In our rejection of God’s law, we have rejected Him. Just like when we reject our laws, and we go before a judge & jury and are found guilty... in the same way, we aren’t just going before someone who defends the laws, WE ARE GOING BEFORE THE LAW GIVER! The One who IS the standard. His Goodness is SO GOOD, evil simply dies in His presence. We learn that sin is a bigger issue in the universe than we think it is. Sin is our belief that we know better than God and that God’s standards are not

Under ConstructionGod Who Is, God Who DeliversExodus 3 - Moses’ life is one of ups and downs, rising and falling. In the midst of it all, God reveals Himself to Moses in a bush! What God reveals in that encounter is that He is the God who IS! He has no beginning. He has always been. He simply “Is.” Everyone else can point to a time when they WERE NOT, but NOT God. This matters because if God did have a creator of His own, we’d be looking to the wrong one :-)Not only did God reveal His power in this statement, but He also revealed that He was a God of rescue. He was going to deliver His people. He was powerful enough to take an entire nation OUT OF another powerful nation. He was going to set people free from slavery and lead them to The Promised Land.Taking it to Jesus - Jesus is the BETTER Moses. Jesus actually let’s people know that He is this same God “Before Abraham, I am!” Jesus was saying that He was there, has always been there, and will always be there! In Jesus’ coming, He was the promise fulfilled t

Under ConstructionGod Who is ThereGenesis 50:19-21 - Joseph’s story is telling, not just about Joseph’s strength, but of a God who is with Joseph in trial and hurt and suffering. He’s not just present with him, but also working in it. God doesn’t need perfect situations to shape us. God doesn’t need perfect people, either. The enemy can use suffering to cause us to hate and distrust God, but in our looking at Christ, we know that God has suffered on our behalf. And what the enemy and even the world saw as bad, God was working for our good and His glory.Taking it to Jesus - Jesus’ life, looked at from the outside, would have been seen as a failure and a mess. BUT GOD was working His plan the whole time. Most would assume that if God was “in it,” there would never be anything wrong or weak or struggling (much less death). BUT, God flipped it, suffered with us, and defeated sin, death, the grave, and darkness. God is working in and through us in the midst of our trials and struggles, through the presence of His

Under ConstructionGod Who ProvidesGenesis 22 - Looking at the story of Abraham and Isaac. God doesn’t compete with our idols or with anything that we might love more than Him. He knows that there is nothing in this life, even the things He has blessed us with, that will give us what we need. God is our source of life and He has provided HIMSELF to us.Isaac was a gift to Abraham and Sarah, but he was not to be their everything. God wouldn’t let His gifts compete with His presence. Abraham was continually learning to lay down his plans and things he was treating as most important, to see God as faithful. God’s provision for Abraham at the altar, was a pointer forward to what Jesus would eventually do.Taking it to Jesus - In the midst of all our idol or gift worshipping, there is nothing more important than the presence of God in our life. God didn’t just provide for Abraham’s specific instance, in Christ, He provided for ours. We all have chased blessings over the ONE WHO IS THE BLESSER. We have all loved the g

Under ConstructionGod Who CallsGenesis 12 - God initiated with Abraham. He calls people, invites people, finds people. Abraham was not looking for God, but God interrupted Abraham. When God called, Abraham believed God. Faith was the response. When we are called, will we walk with Him?In God’s call, the response is faith. Faith is belief PLUS action. We’ve believed God, so we act accordingly. Abraham was a picture of that process.Taking it to Jesus - Jesus continued to display this God who calls. Jesus called the disciples, the disciples called people to believe and obey God’s Son. Faith is belief WITH action. Do we believe Jesus to be who He says He is? Do we respond when we hear His voice? Will our actions tell others that we believe Jesus has called us and saved us?

Under ConstructionGod Who SavesGenesis 6-9 - Looking at Noah’s story... a man living among others in a world that had turned to evil in every way. God asked Noah to trust Him and in doing so, Noah and his family would be saved. God established a rescue plan, NOT Noah. God saves, but He does it His way. Had Noah said, “I’ll do it some other way,” Noah would have been lost. The story of Noah is a pointer to faith coming before obedience BUT faith working WITH obedience. Noah believed God, so He did what God said. In doing so, He was saved.Taking it to Jesus - Jesus is salvation God’s Way. Jesus means, “The Lord Saves.” As humanity learns about this God, we have a decision to make, “Will we trust Him and in doing so, act in obedience?” Will we trust that Jesus has saved us? Will our faith lead to obedience? Noah’s story, salvation coming in God’s way, is a pointer to Jesus... God’s able to save us, will we believe Him?

Under ConstructionGod of His Word, God Who Punishes Sin, God Who CoversGenesis 2:15-3:21 - God establishes that when He makes a promise or declaration, He does stick to it. When He declares that our decisions have consequences tied to them, His Word is true. We need to hear these words and takes them seriously. When sin shows up, we learn that God cannot be around sin (and since sin marks people in the garden), we are removed from His presence. Sin and God will not be in the same space, because wherever God’s holiness steps in, sin cannot exist there. Sin has consequences, primarily being –separation: no longer living in the presence of God. We will never fully grasp what was lost on that day, but God gives us a detail about Himself in the covering of Adam and Eve before He sends them out of the garden.Taking it to Jesus - Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise God made to crush the serpents head. In Christ, God was STILL ABLE to punish sin and COVER His people. He did not start a new system of things in Chr

Under ConstructionGod of Order, God of PresenceGenesis 1-2 - God sets the functions of time, weather, food, seasons, reproduction, human purpose, and rest. So often we get hung up on HOW these things started, but the bigger picture of Genesis is WHY. God gave function to everything INCLUDING humans. We were created for community (God and others), meaning (reflecting God and work), and with individual freedom (any fruit, just not one). When a human being misses out on any of these things OR WORSE obsesses over one more than the others - we end up NOT living the good life.God didn’t just set things up and then walk away, but establishes from the beginning He has being among His people as part of the plan. Genesis, along with other early creation stories, establishes God in His Temple... except for the God of the Bible, the entire Earth was His footstool. He was NOT in a building, but the whole EARTH was His dwelling place. Without His presence, nothing would have come about or been held together.Taking it to Je

2020 - Crappy Year, Good God (Psalm 120:1-7)There are playlists we like to pull out for travel.  Sometimes we spend a few hours creating the "perfect" playlist.  They remind us of vacations before, long drives, and great destinations.  God uses the Psalms to help us a we journey toward Him.  The Psalms are a place of mourning, questioning what we are seeing, and simple turns back to God in the midst of struggle and sorrow.Psalm 120:1 - is the very first verse in a playlist Jews would sing on their way up to the Temple.  It was a declaration.  "I took my troubles to the Lord; I cried out to him, and he answered my prayer."  It is no coincidence the songs START with this.  We could take our troubles anywhere these days, but are we fed up enough that we will take them to Him?This psalm talks of fighting and lying and trouble.  It speaks of living in a land where people say they want peace, but it doesn't seem to be what people really want.  It's a "fed-up-ness" with all th

Together Apart? Not in the Kingdom.Christmas Eve Service"God with us" means we will NEVER be apart again.  "God with us" was often spoken in the face of the crowd's rejection.  "God with us" was often the only comfort the church could find in intense moments of persecution.  "God with us" even if our own family forsakes us.The nearness of God IS how we sustain living in a day and age when we are being told to fear nearness of others.  The nearness of God IS NOT something we visit... Nearness IS the point of living!The reminder of this Advent season is NOT that we worked our way to be near God, in fact, we are more frequently reminded that WE WORKED OUR WAY AWAY from God... SO HE CAME NEAR.  "Together Apart" will not be the final say over our lives.  God is not physically distancing Himself from His people because of our sickness... in fact, He came into the world to take on our sickness and to take our sickness away!  How does our sickness end, NOT throug

This ChristmasThe Savior, the Wise Men, and The Vision (Matthew 2:1-12, Isaiah 60:1-7)“This Christmas” will look at the Christmas story through more of an “Eastern” lens. Removing some of our misconceptions of these parts of the Christmas story and hopefully cause us to see them even more full!

This ChristmasMy Birth Plan (Matthew 1:18-25)“This Christmas” will look at the Christmas story through more of an “Eastern” lens. Removing some of our misconceptions of these parts of the Christmas story and hopefully cause us to see them even more full!